In my research into Coca Cola’s Rhetoric, I have found the rhetorical emphasis on four different points. These four emphasis points are family, health, nostalgia, and unification. With these four points in mind, how does Coca-Cola combat these challenges?

The first point that Coca-Cola addresses are family values. The artifact I selected in the past was the polar bear. It is a simple concept with a variety of marketable opportunities that Coca-Cola utilizes.  Stuffed toys, t-shirts, glassware, and other items subtlely infused the product into the minds of the consumer.

In the modern world, people are more health conscious than ever before. With the obesity epidemic of the twenty-first century, Coca-Cola listened to their customers’ requests and developed healthier alternatives and less-calorie products such as Diet Coke, Coke Zero and Coca-Cola Life. Coca-Cola Life contains two natural sugars derived from the Stevia plant. They also list their ingredients to help people understand what they are drinking.

Nostalgia is one of the biggest marketable aspects that Coca-Cola utilizes in their marketing campaigns. By keeping the traditional bottle as part of their logo, both old and new customers can readily identify with the product. They also make replicas of the retro signs so that nostalgia will make people buy more products.

When a company is manufacturing a product that is sold throughout the world, it can be difficult to adapt the product to the variety of worldwide cultures and tastes. Coca-Cola adapts to the unification problem by making individual types of Coke for the areas that are buying it. However, since Coca-Cola became a global business, they are making their products more in line with one style. This strategy ensures unity within each culture. For example, if an American travels to Japan, it would be easy to recognize Coca-Cola because it has it has the exact same label design as in America.

Coca-Cola is a large dominating company force that provides the masses with an almost infinite amount of beverages around the globe. With over a century of being in existence, Coca Cola has been evolving its massive campaigns to promote their products. There are four points that are to be addressed. These four points are: Exigencies, Audience, Constraints and Assets, and Rhetorical Situations.

Exigencies: Coca-Cola biggest problem is common with any company: adapting to the changing times. As new generations grow up, they have new tastes and want new products that they can adopt as their own. They don’t want products that the previous generations enjoyed. Coca Cola has conquered this problem by making new sodas such as Sprite and Fanta Orange. Another problem that Coca-Cola tackled is the obesity epidemic. To combat this epidemic, Coca Cola supports organizations that promotes public health and research, as well as making healthier alternative sodas such as diet drinks and water.

Audience: Coca-Cola’s biggest audiences are the younger generations such as the Millennials and the Gen Z’s. Many of them are against Coca-Cola; they view it as a large commercial giant. Coca Cola combats this with their “ A Coke For Everyone Campaign” and “Share a Coke” campaigns. These two slogan goals are to encourage friendship with others and the company.

Constraints and Assets: The biggest constraint that Coca-Cola is trying to follow is to listen to the customer and to be honest with them. They follow two of those moral compasses.

Rhetorical Situations:  The public views many large companies as being filled with greedy capitalists who are out to get money and do not understand or care about the wellbeing of their customers. Coca Cola tries to challenge this by making their websites simple and easy to understand their message. They are here for you and have a translucent company policy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzwtzF_EH40

When people think of Coca-Cola, they think of two things: soda and the polar bears.  These creatures have become the mascots of the soda.

It was first created in the 1980’s as a mascot during the Christmas season. It projected an image that Coca-Cola was not a large faceless organization. With this advertising campaign, Coca-Cola was showing that it was part of the family.

In 1993, this commercial was animated to give the warm feeling of comfort and joy showing the bears’ amusement of the aurora borelis. This reflects our own joy of the holidays with our families and Coca-Cola sharing  the celebration.

Another purpose of choosing cute animals such as the polar bear was the merchandising possibilities. The most common of the items was the stuffed polar bear with the Coca-Cola logo on the red scarf. Polar bear clocks with the bear holding a bottled Coke were popular. There are also Christmas ornaments with the bear in a snow globe.

Cute, fluffy polar bears, are a simple and cuddly symbol that speaks volumes in a crowded soft drink industry. Coca-Cola, loves to show this happy group of bears to bring happiness to their customers. Not only in their taste of the sodas but, also in their hearts.

In these next few posts I am covering the Coca-Cola Company. Specifically the Rhetorical aspect of how the company applies this concept into their products and themes.

Post: #3 will cover the famous Coca-Cola Polar bears. How does this affect the people and how does this make people appeal to the company? These questions will be answered in Post:#3 coming soon.